Online piracy has taken the whole world by storm and occurs since most people lack money to purchase things they need. Adobe Photoshop is a standard internet pirated software to avert parting with $1,000. Music is the second area battling piracy. Individuals download music freely without contemplating that such actions amount to piracy. Pirating websites such as The Pirate Bay simplifies the illegal download of materials. Piracy happens every day, with over 100, 000 logins to piracy websites each minute (Online Piracy in Numbers n. p). The leading advantage of this practice is price fairness (Kukla-Gryz, Joanna and Michał 1). To this end, this essay asserts that online piracy is good, and unauthorized downloading of content benefits users. This practice also benefits businesses through effective exploitation of its benefits.
History and Evolution of Online piracy
Nowadays, talks about piracy have shifted from the traditional maritime activities and entered the internet platform, courtesy of technological advancements with a plethora of positive and negative aspects. The current discussions over this practice involves an average person connected to the online space through any internet platform that include You Tube, Google and other numerous websites. The term piracy denotes an illegal reproduction or utilization of copyrighted content. Such information is mostly sold at lower prices in the ‘gray’ market.
Technological innovations in the current era of information awareness have stimulated several changes on the global transfer of information. The changes forces people to embrace them to simplify various activities. Internet accessibility has enabled humans from all walks of life in different corners of the world to access various crucial files at remarkable internet speeds. In doing so, internet users efficiently access needed information for individual benefits. However, the same technological advancements are equally the causes of the present unlawful circulation of stolen content. For instance, CD writers are commercially off-the-shelf at substantially low prices, thus making piracy easy.
Generally, piracy fall into two broad classes, namely, physical and online piracy. Physical piracy is the unverified replication and circulation of works, however, in the physical form. Newspapers, journals, reports, books, course packs, and magazines are equally replicated physically and disseminated to various destinations. Digital piracy, on the other hand, denotes an unauthorized replication and dissemination of copyrighted material using electronic platforms. The most widespread digital piracy outlet is the online P2P network, which hosts copyrighted files like movies, uploading copyrighted content on video sharing sites, mp3s, among others (Online Piracy in Numbers n. p.). Also, simple ways of dissemination via instant messaging or email are also illegal online piracy. Digital media can be unlawfully burned onto mediums like DVDs and CDs and sold at a lower price than the retail price.
Piracy is done in a number of ways, such as cable piracy, video piracy, and CD/DVD piracy. Cable piracy occurs when films are shown through a cable network without permission from the copyrights holder, such as producers. Video piracy is the unauthorized film production in the form of a videocassette. Generally, after six weeks or even more, is when film producers sell video rights to other parties who make video cassettes for selling. Music piracy is the unauthorized duplication of music cassette tapes that flood the market whenever a new release is launched.
There were only a number of technological advancements in the last millennium, which could affect media content distribution. Gutenbergas, in the year 1450, invented the printing press, which enabled easy and cheap replication of paper works. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, people were able to record audio thanks to the Sony Walkman launch, while the videocassette system could record video. The commercialization of the technology involving DVD/CD optical disk during the 1990s paved way for digital recording period. The 21st century steered introduction of new online mediums, which worked jointly with computers and the internet to take data sharing to a whole new level. Information is now spread faster, however, it also brought with it content copyright issues.
In 1999, a student from Northeastern University, Shawn Fanning, released “the godfather of peer to peer programs” called a Napster. At the time, Napster exclusively facilitated the sharing of music. Just after being introduced, the unrestricted and stress-free program became very common since each day, computer operators had sufficient technical expertise to facilitate sharing of files among users. Napster, which enabled people to transfer copyrighted content, raised the Recording Industry Association of America, which filed a lawsuit against it at the end of the year 1999. It is the immense success of Napster that inspired today’s peer to peer debacle. Fanning’s innovation is what planted the seed of the next generations of peer to peer coders, which generate duplications of the program more insusceptible to control through copyright laws.
In 2001, FastTrack protocol enabled a more distributed network with no centralized server. Newer peer to peer programs such as Grokster, iMesh, and KaZaa implemented the FastTrack procedure that garnered millions of operators. In the subsequent two years, FastTrack became carved a niche as a standard file-sharing system, majorly used to exchange mp3 music files.
In the mid-1990s, the accepted mp3 format enabled consumers to simplify songs into quite a few megabyte records for faster dissemination in the entire digital world, while DivX did replicated the same for video. The capacity for large file transfer became possible as more families migrated to using the internet platforms.
In the year 2001, Bram Cohen developed BitTorrent. Large files could now be split into sizeable pieces, thus data can be widely disseminated and shared without the original distributor having to incur the whole costs of hardware, among others. For a customer to download extra data, he or she must supply the demanded chunks of the larger file to a newer receiver. The implementation of Cohen was able to exploit a legal loophole.
Physical piracy history can be traced back to the days of cassette tapes and floppy disks. In the early 1980s, the accepted floppy disk technology provided consumers with an easy way to copy related files on a computer. Copyrighted computer games and software could be easily replicated using the floppy disks.
Piracy is, without a doubt, helping the world. It is such a collective and surprisingly embraced by many at society level. Song stealing carriers a less magnitude compared to stealing a car, even though stealing is stealing. It is a harmless crime. Piracy does not cause as much harm as what content producers would like us to think. Content producers argue, and the industry argues that an estimated 200 and 250 billion US dollars are lost because of piracy in a year, and also 750,000 American jobs are lost. However, The Government Accountability Office in the year 2010 reported that the numbers are inflated and cannot be drawn back to origin of data (Kain, n. p.).
Piracy has no substantial effect on legal sales. It could, however, make sales to increase due to increased awareness of the artist or content. It is thanks to piracy that people can watch a film they would otherwise have not watched. Piracy in the book industry increases sales in the long run compared to its disadvantages. For instance, when Neil Gaiman produced for free a copy of his novella “American Gods” through his website when its price was quite economical, more individuals acquired the novel. The cheaper alternative increase the desire for purchase and subsequent move to materialize such plan.
Moreover, piracy enables persons to become better consumers. Through pirating movies, books, and music, people can sample things they cannot buy due to one reason or the other such as super-extended cuts of TV series and movies they cannot access. Piracy enables people to purchase material they like the most and, at the same time, still sample other material out there.
Piracy allows for the free flow of information, making the world more prosperous, and it develops a new market for legal content. Many people who are downloading unauthorized content would never have paid for them anyway. Besides, many people in countries where artists could not do business can now buy content as it is available online. The faster flow of information keep people updated on various happenings in different corners of the world. This era of information require prompt updates for personal awareness and to enlighten others.
Piracy is good; take the following example. Many games are region locked, cannot be purchased legally, or are no longer sold. For consumers in such a position, the only way to obtain games is through piracy. Most persons pirate games because they cannot pay for them, and since they could not afford the game in the first place, no purchase is technically lost.
Online Piracy from a Business Perspective
Online piracy also helps businesses apart from consumer benefits. The first benefit concerns offering the business environment with remarkable market insight. This awareness is critical to determine gaps in meeting consumer demands to take appropriate remedial measures. Secondly, piracy pioneer the application of new technologies. This move enhances the efficiency of operations of businesses to meet their mission and value statements. Thirdly, online piracy stimulates the advancement of innovative and credible business models. These developments are critical to increasing the rate of competition, which leads to a higher quality of service delivery. Lastly, online piracy contributes to creating new markets to ensure a balanced demand and supply perspectives. Therefore, the benefits prove that online piracy should continue. Nonetheless, corporate leaders should improve their digital watermarking capabilities to avoid falling victims to the negative aspects of piracy. Caution is better than taking a remedial measure after a disastrous eventuality.
Online piracy continues to impact the ever-changing software and media industries. This practice help beneficiaries and businesses in equal magnitude. The impressible advancement of piracy communities implies that legal battles would continually have an insignificant impact. The illustrations in this essay prove that online piracy has a plethora of benefits. Entrepreneurs and company managers should change their views about this practice to consider it a significant source of innovation that lacked in the traditional media industry. Online piracy stimulates using new technologies, spur the advancement of innovative and legitimate business models, and offer the business environment with significant market insight.
Works Cited
Kain, Eric. “Piracy: Helping Or Harming The World?.” Intellectual Property. (2017).
Kukla-Gryz, Anna, Joanna Tyrowicz, and Michał Krawczyk. “Digital piracy and the perception of price fairness: evidence from a field experiment.” Journal of Cultural Economics (2020): 1-27.
“Online Piracy in Numbers – Facts and Statistics [Infographic].” Web Design Dubai Dubai Web Design and Web Application Development Company Online Piracy in Numbers Facts and Statistics Infographic Comments. 1 Nov. 2011. Web. 12 Apr. 2015. <http://www.go-gulf.com/blog/online-piracy/>.
Xanthidis, Dimitrios, and Eisa Aleisa. “Internet piracy from a digital consumer’s viewpoint.” International Journal of Communications 4.6 (2012): 153-165.
